ASEAN battered but will survive, says official

ASEAN battered but will survive, says official

SYDNEY (Reuters): The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been battered by the Asian crisis, but has rallied to pave the way for the region's economic recovery, a senior ASEAN official said on Tuesday.

Rodolfo Severino, secretary-general of the regional group, said predictions ASEAN would disintegrate as its nine members struggled to cope with the financial crisis had proven baseless.

"At the beginning the media and observers predicted the disintegration of ASEAN...but the opposite has happened," Severino told reporters at the beginning of a three-day visit.

"At the beginning of the crisis the ASEAN image suffered a blow, but I think this perception is being turned around now in arms of ASEAN's ability to work together and to begin a process of recovery," Severino said.

"Instead of ASEAN being in disarray, the crisis has in fact impelled ASEAN to come together closer and strengthen its cooperation and its integration," he said.

"It has become clear that in this globalizing economy nations have to coalesce into more integrated regions if they are to survive and this is exactly what ASEAN has done."

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia will be formally admitted as a full member on April 30.

Severino said ASEAN had accelerated the formation of an Asian Free Trade Zone (AFTA) by three years to 2000, when 90 percent of tariffs would be cut to between zero to five percent.

Some Asian nations, most notably Malaysia, have blamed currency and stock market speculators for the financial crisis that has plunged the region into recession.

ASEAN leaders agreed at their last summit in Hanoi in December to commission a study into a common ASEAN currency.

Severino said ASEAN was seriously studying aligning currencies and that a common currency was now talked about.

"The idea of at least aligning the currencies of Southeast Asia and probably East Asia is being seriously studied," he said.

"The idea of a single currency is further down the road, we would say much further down the road, but it has suddenly become thinkable," Severino said.

Severino said although ASEAN was seeking greater integration of investment and financial affairs and the alignment of macro- economic policies, there was no talk of a common market.

"There are other forms of economic integration and one of them is having a common external tariff, but that is not yet on the cards -- a real common market," he said.

"We are not yet talking about that."